It has been 212 days since Ben Simmons last suited up for the Philadelphia 76ers as the 25-year-old remains at loggerheads with the team’s front office.
Simmons has not logged so much as one second of court time this season as he refuses to play, and he continues to remain absent for a variety of team events.
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The Sixers’ executives have made their position clear on exactly what they want in any trade deals for Simmons, which is an All-Star calibre player heading to the City of Brotherly Love.
Tue, 18 Jan
Tuesday January 18th
As they wait to be approached with the perfect deal, Simmons continues to drag his feet and wait for a new team to call home.
Given the lengthy absence from playing, some have felt the Melbourne native would eventually bite the bullet and get back playing.
But according to ESPN NBA insider Ramona Shelburne, that isn’t a mindset Simmons is entertaining.
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“The sense is, if it takes the entire season to trade him, if it takes all year for the Sixers to find a trade that’s acceptable for them, he’s prepared for that,” Shelburne told ESPN.
“It sounds unbelievable to think that a guy who is still getting fined for every game, for every practice, for every weightlifting session that he’s missing, as of the January 15 paycheck that he got, there’s still heavy fines being laid on him.
“He’s OK if it goes the whole season, if that’s how it goes.”
Without Simmons, the 76ers occupy the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference.
We’ll never quite know how they would have fared this season with Simmons on the court, but with superstar Joel Embiid leading the way, it has forced other players to step up.
Speaking after the Sixers’ 11-point win over the Miami Heat on Sunday (AEDT), Embiid emphatically declared that the team “have everything here we need”, and Shelburne felt it was a telling statement that proved the team have all but moved on from Simmons.
“This is where we got into the game of chicken,” Shelburne said. “They say the same thing.
“Joel Embiid was quoted after the game saying ‘we have everything here we need’.
“That’s a heck of a statement. ‘We have everything here we need’ – in other words, I’m not going to put pressure on my organisation to find a resolution with this Ben Simmons trade.
“Because frankly, if you’ve watched Joel Embiid in the last 30 days, he’s been one of the best players in the league … and I checked [with him], and I go, ‘what did you mean by that?’
“And he goes, ‘I actually like the challenge of winning with these guys. I believe in these guys, and I like this challenge right now.’
“We’ll see if anyone blinks here. But right now, they’re in it for the long haul.”
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